“Arthur, no,” I said, half rising.

“I cannot manage an empire.

I am a nurse.

I clean offices at night.

I count coins for the bus.

You cannot hand a thing like that to someone like me.” I was genuinely frightened, more frightened in that moment than I had been of his children, because a danger you can name is one thing and a responsibility that size is another.

He only looked at me with a steady, unshakable certainty, as though he had already weighed every objection I could possibly raise and found each one wanting.